Description:
Set of fancy chairs with two armchairs and four side chairs with rush seats, decorated in gold, brown, and black with bow-notes and stylized leaves on a grey-green ground. According to family tradition, these chairs purportedly originally belonged to Caleb Strong (1745-1819), who was born and died in Northampton, and served as United States senator from 1789-1797 and governor of Massachusetts from 1800-1807 and 1812-1816. The chairs came from Minnie D. Clark of Northampton, Massachusetts, the niece of Merritt Clark (1829-19?), a Northampton clothing retailer who made his fortune manufacturing Civil War uniforms. Marritt Clark married Sarah Josepine King in 1859; they collected antiques in Northampton where they may have acquired this set of chairs and cruet set (64.063) from a descendent of Caleb Strong. After his wife's death in in 1909, Minnie Clark was Marritt's companion and housekeeper; Minnie died in 1938 or 1939 and the chairs ultimately went to her great nephew, Charles Eli Clark of New Haven, whose wife sold them to HD in 1964.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+64.062%2FE |
